Port 179 (TCP) — Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
BGP-4 is the inter-domain routing protocol of the global internet and modern cloud interconnects (AWS Direct Connect, Cloudflare Magic Transit, Leaf-Spine EVPN data centers).
| Port Number | 179 |
|---|---|
| Transport Protocol | TCP |
| Primary Service | Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) |
| Standard / Specification | RFC 4271 |
| IANA Port Range | Well-Known System Port (0–1023) |
| Internet Exposure Risk | Core routing control plane; unauthorized TCP/179 access risks route hijacking or session resets. |
Firewall Architecture & Hardening Best Practices
Lock down TCP/179 with strict peer-IP prefix ACLs, TCP-AO or MD5 authentication, RPKI ROA origin validation, max-prefix limits, and Generalized TTL Security Mechanism (GTSM / ttl-security hops 1).
Operational Troubleshooting Note
If BGP stays stuck in Active or OpenSent state, verify bidirectional TCP/179 ACLs, autonomous system numbers, and path MTU for large route table updates.
Quick CLI Connectivity & Firewall Reference
# Test TCP/179 reachability (Linux / macOS / PowerShell) nc -zv target.example.com 179 Test-NetConnection -ComputerName target.example.com -Port 179 # Allow restricted CIDR on Linux UFW firewall ufw allow from 10.0.0.0/8 to any port 179 proto tcp
Planning firewall allowlists or VPN overlays? Use our IPv4 CIDR Calculator, MTU & TCP MSS Calculator, or WireGuard AllowedIPs Generator.
Browse Common Network & Cloud Ports
Port 22 (SSH) Port 25 (SMTP Mail Relay) Port 53 (Domain Name System) Port 67 (DHCPv4 Server) Port 80 (HTTP Web Traffic) Port 123 (Network Time Protocol) Port 161 (SNMP Polling) Port 179 (Border Gateway Protocol) Port 389 (LDAP Directory) Port 443 (HTTPS & HTTP) Port 445 (SMB Direct File Sharing) Port 465 (SMTPS Implicit TLS Submission) Port 500 (IPsec IKEv2 Key Exchange) Port 514 (Syslog Telemetry) Port 587 (SMTP Mail Submission) Port 636 (LDAPS) Port 853 (DNS over TLS) Port 993 (IMAPS Encrypted Mailbox) Port 1194 (OpenVPN Tunnel) Port 1433 (Microsoft SQL Server) Port 1812 (RADIUS Authentication) Port 2049 (Network File System) Port 2379 (etcd Client API) Port 3306 (MySQL & MariaDB) Port 3389 (Remote Desktop Protocol) Port 4500 (IPsec NAT Traversal) Port 5432 (PostgreSQL Database) Port 6379 (Redis) Port 6443 (Kubernetes API Server) Port 51820 (WireGuard VPN)